S'ysi'y^iff^''?^g^i?^''^;''^'^'i?^i?7^i''?^'i?^i??^i'^^ 


The  Parents  of 
Abraham  Lincoln 


An  Address  by 
WILLIAM  E.  BARTON 


A  iithor  of  "The  ^oiil  of  Abraham  Lincoln/'  ''The  Paternity 
of  Abraham  Lincoln/'  etc. 


Delivered  at  the  grave  of  Thomas  Lincoln,  Goose  Nest 
Prairie,    near    Janesville,    Illinois, 

September    18,    1922. 


CHARLESTON,  ILLINOIS 

The  Charleston  Daily  Courier 

1922 


THE  CELEBRATION  AT  I^HILOH 


Shiloli  Church,  which  adjoins  the  cemetery  where 
Thomas  Lincoln  and  Sarah  Bush  Lincoln  are  buried,  was 
recently  remodeled  and  its  facilities  were  enlarged.  A 
service  of  rededication  was  held,  and  a  memorial  window 
was  dedicated  to  the  memory  of  Thomas  and  Sarah  Lin- 
coln. Shortly  after  this  rededication,  a  notable  Lincoln 
celebration  was  held,  and  attended  by  people  from  the 
neighborhood  and  from  several  adjacent  towns.  A  number 
of  people  were  present  who  had  personally  known  Thomas 
Lincoln,  and  many  who  had  known  his  widow.  The 
speaker  of  the  day  was  Dr.  William  E.  Barton,  who  de- 
livered twO'  addresses,  one  on  ^The  Greatness  of  Abraham 
Lincoln"  and  the  other  on  ''The  Parents  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln." The  church  Avas  packed  to  its  capacity  for  the 
morning  address.  This  was  followed  by  a  picnic  dinner, 
and  r-eunion  of  old  friends.  The  afternoon  meeting  was 
held  out  of  doors,  in  the  cemetery.  Dr.  Barton  delivered 
his  address  standing  beside  the  graves  of  Thomas  and 
Sarah  Lincoln. 


a: 


1  i:>/iKi0  5 
The  Parents  of  Abraham  Lincoln 


Three  mighty  forces  go  to  the  making  of  any  man, 
Fii'f^t  is  that  mysterioiis  element  of  personality  wherein 
every  man  diifers  from  every  other  man.  No  two  men, 
even  though  born  of  the  same  {parents  and  reared  in  the 
same  surroun(lin<»s,  ])rove  to  be  Avhollv  similar.  No  two 
leaves  upon  the  tree,  no  two  blades  of  grass,  no  two  thumb- 
prints of  the  human  hand,  no  two  brains,  no  two  charac- 
ters are  precisely  alike.  The  second  of  the  forces  whicli 
make  us  wiiat  Ave  are  is  heredity.  Every  man  is  what  he 
is  partly  because  of  what  his  parents,  his  grandparents 
and  his  remote  ancestors  wei-e.  The  third  of  these  forces 
is  enviionment.  Every  man's  life  is  shaped  by  the  influ- 
ence of  other  lives,  by  soil,  climate,  and  other  conditions 
surrounding  him.  The  life  of  Abraham  Lincoln  Avas  Avhat 
it  Avas  partly  because  of  his  successive  environments, 
partly  because  of  his  inheritance,  and  ])artly  b(Kause  of 
i^  his  OAvn  f>ersonality.    It  is  fitting  that  we  should  consider 

^  todav  something  of  his   inheritance   through   his   father, 

■~^  Thomas  Lincoln,  his  mother,  XancA'  Hanks,  and  the  subse- 

,^  (juent  influence  upon  him  of  his  devoted  step-mother,  Sarak 

It)  Bush  Johnson,  the  second  Avife  of  Thomas  Lincoln, 

-ii  It  is  surprising  that  so  little  reliable  Avork  has  been 

^.  done  in  this  field.     On  the  death  of  Abraham  Lincoln  no 

^^  member  of  the  Lincoln  family  Avas  present  at  his  funeral 

save  his  AvidoAV,  Mary  Todd  Lincoln,  and  her  twO'  surviving 
sons,  Robert,  and  Thomas.  Although  most  of  the  Todds 
Avere  Confederates,  there  Avere  Todd  relatives  at  the  fu- 
neral, but  no  Lincoln.  There  has  been  but  little  oppor- 
tunity to  learn  to  Avliat  extent  Abraham  Lincoln  Avas  a 
Lincoln.  His  own  contact  Avith  the  Lincoln  family  Avas 
exceedingly  meager. 

This  Ave  knoAv,  however,  that  Abraham  Lincoln  was 
thoroughly  a  Lincoln,  ^ye  know  enough  of  the  Lincoln 
family  traits  to  assure  ourseh^es  that  hoAvever  great  the 
contrast  betAveen  him  and  either  of  his  parents,  he  had  an 
important  heritage  from  both.  AYhile  Thomas  Lincoln 
never  could  have  been  as  great  a  nmn  as  his  son,  and  Avhile 
Nancy  Hanks  never  contemplated  the  possibility  of  herself 
becoining  a  notable  Avoman,  each  of  these  tAvo  gaA'e  some- 
thing important  to  the  making  of  Lincoln.  The  picture 
of  Nancy  Hanks,  Avhich  has  come  down  to  us,  is  vague  in 
its  outline  and  elusive  in  its  definition.  But  Lincoln  him- 
self said  of  his  mother  that  she  was  a  woman  of  strong 

3 


mind  and  character  and  that  from  her  he  inher-ited  his 
power  of  analysis  and  his  logical  mind.  Thomas  Lincoln 
died  before  his  son  became  famous,  and  he  was  held  in  no 
very  high  regai-d  by  Lincoln's  earlier  biographers ;  but  in 
proportion  as  we  come  to  know  the  Lincolns,  and  to  be 
able  to  form  some  judgment  of  the  character  of  Thomas 
Lincoln,  we  find  him  to  have  been  indispensable  in  the 
heredity  of  his  great  son. 

No  one  of  us  can  spare  any  one  of  his  ancestors.  There 
is  no  way  in  which  we  can  short-circuit  the  line  of  descent 
so  as  to  cuti  out  the  obscurest  and  least  interesting  of  them.. 
Each  one  of  them,  male  and  female,  is  indispensable  in  liis 
or  her  own  generation ;  and  had  the  place  of  any  one  man 
or  any  one  woman  among  them  been  taken  by  any  other 
man  or  woman  in  that  generation,  we  should  not  be  what 
now  we  are. 

We  have  tO'  reckon  with  Abraham  Lincoln  as  he  was ; 
and  it  is  in  some  respects  a  minor  (question  how  he  came 
to  be  what  he  was ;  but  this  we  know,  that  his  personality 
was  a  strange  compound  of  diverse  elements,  some  of  them 
inhented  from  his  paternal  and  some  from  his  maternal 
lines,  and  that  he  needed  all  of  them  to  be  Abraham  Lin- 
coln. 

So  much  of  error  has  been  printed  as  truth,  it  may  be 
well  to  give  a  few  dates  and  other  biographical  data. 

First  of  all,  the  dates  given  on  the  tombstone  of 
Thomas  Lincoln,  I  am  confident,  are  correct,  and  not  those 
furnished  in  some  of  the  biographies.  He  was  born  in 
Rockingham  County,  Virginia,  January  7,  1778,  and  he 
died  Januai-y  15,  1851.  He  was  the  youngest  of  three  sons, 
and  next  to  the  youngest  of  five  children  of  Abraham  and 
Bathsheba  Lincoln.  .His  father  was  not  twice  married; 
the  five  children  were  all  children  of  one  mother,  who  re- 
moved to  Kentucky  with  her  husband  in  1782,  and  long 
survived  him.  Abraham  Lincoln  the  elder  was  killed  by 
Indians  in  May,  1780,  and  not  in  1784,  as  is  usually  stated. 
Thomas  Lincoln  learned  the  carpenter's  trade.  He  was 
probably  not  a  very  skilled  carpenter,  but  he  was  compe- 
tent to  do  the  kind  of  work  which  the  frontier  required. 

Nancy  Hanks,  first  wife  of  Thomas  Lincoln,  and 
mother  of  the  President,  was  born  in  Virginia  in  1783; 
lemoved  mtli  her  family  to  Kentucky  in  early  childhood ; 
w^as  married  to  Thomas  Lincoln  by  Rev.  Jesse  Head  on 
Beech  Fork,  in  Washington  Oounty,  on  June  12,  1806. 
With  her  husband  and  children  she  removed  to  Indiana 
in  1816,  and  she  died  October  5,  1818. 

4 


Sarah  or  Sally  Bush,  second  wife  of  Thomas  Lincoln, 
lived  in  p]lizabethto\vn,  Kentucky,  and  nianicd,  first, 
Daniel  Johnston,  by  wlioni  she  had  three  clnldren,  John 
D.,  Sarah  and  Matihhi.  Atter  the  (U^ath  of  licr  first  liiis- 
band,  she  married  Thomas  Lincoln  I)ecend)ei-  2,  LSID.  She 
was  a  good  mother,  both  to  hei-  own  chihlr(Mi  and  to  tlie 
two  children  of  Thomas  Lincoln,  Sarah  and  Abraham. 
She  died  Apiil  10,  lS()i),  and  is  buried  here  b(^side  licr  lius- 
band.  Her  infiuence  upon  the  life  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
was  wholly  iiood.  He  held  her  in  honor,  and  she  cherislied 
his  memory  with  a  beautiful  and  truly  motheily  affection. 

Standin<>  here  today  by  the  grave  of  Thomas  Lincoln, 
and  that  of  his  second  Avife,  Sally  Bush,  the  second  mother 
of  Abraham  Lincoln,  we  have  to  remind  ourselves  that 
there  is  much  need  of  revision  of  popular  knowledge,  or 
what  passes  for  knowledge,  concerning  Lincoln's  parents. 
His  step-mother  suivived  him,  and  lived  to  be  interviewed 
by  the  earlier  biographers.  She  was  able  tO'  bear  her  testi- 
mony that  Abraham  was  always  a  good  boy  and  never 
spoke  to  her  a  cross  word,  and  that  she  loved  him  as  her 
own  sou.  But  Thomas  and  Nancy  Lincoln  died  long  before 
Abraham,  and  there  is  nuich  error  commonly  accepted  as 
truth  in  the  literatuic  concerning  both  of  them. 

It  is  often  allegx^d  that  the  name  of  Thomas  Lincoln 
was  not  Lincoln  but  Linkhorn.  Various  authors  have  de- 
clared that  this  branch  o-f  the  family  nevei-  wrote  the  name 
as  Lincoln  until  Abraham  Lincoln  himself  obtained  suffi- 
cient education  to  settle  the  spelling.  As  recent  a  wi'iter 
as  Norman  Hapgood  says  of  Thomas  Lincoln,  or  Linkhorn, 
"His  name  was  under  the  circumstances  unstable,  but  in 
Indiana  it  showed  a  general  drift  toward  Lickern,  away 
from  the  favorite  Kentucky  form  of  Linkhorn,  settling  its 
present  spelling  many  years  later  in  Illinois."'  Mr.  Hap- 
good is  wrong  in  this  and  in  much  besides.  In  the  back- 
w^oods,  not  only  the  name  of  Lincoln  but  most  other  names 
were  mispronounced  and  misspelled,  but  I  have  not  found 
one  single  instance  of  its  being  misspelled  by  a  member  of 
the  family.  Thoujas  Lincoln  and  Thomas  Lincoln's  father 
Abraham  and  Thomas  Lincoln's  uncle  Thomas,  for  whom 
he  was  named,  and  his  grandfathei-  and  his  great-grand- 
father all  signed  their  names  Lincoln. 

It  is  often  alleged  and  commonly  believe<l  that 
Thomas  Lincoln  was  taught  to  read  and  write  by  his  first 
wife,  Nancv  Hanks.  On  the  contrarv,  he  signed  his  name 
before  he  was  mari-ied.  We  have  reason  to  believe  that 
Nancv  Hanks  did  write,  but  in  the  onlv  document  that  has 

5 


been  discoyered  executed  by  these  two,  Thomas  Lincoln 
signed  his  name  and  ]S"ancy  made  her  mark.  It  is  tme  that 
Thomas  Lincoln's  education  was  very  meager.  As  his 
famous  son  said  of  him,  he  Avas  able  ''bunglingly  to  write 
his  own  name"  and  that  was  all.  But  that  was  something 
of  a  distinction  in  a  time  when  so  many  men  in  contem- 
porary life  and  with  like  advantages  signed  their  names 
with  a  cross. 

It  is  often  alleged  that  Thomas  Lincoln  was  cheated 
out  of  his  inheritance  by  his  two  older  brothers,  Mordecai 
and  Josiah,  Mordecai  taking  the  whole  property  by  right 
of  primogenituie  and  distributing  a  minor  portion  to 
Josiah  by  leaving  Thomas  entirely  unprovided  for.  On  the 
contrary,  it  appears  that  Mordecai  as  heir-at-law  of  his 
father  represented  honorably  the  interests  of  the  whole 
family.  Soon  after  Thomas  Lincoln  became  of  age  he  was 
able  to  buy  an  improved  farm  and  to  pay  for  it  in  cash. 
The  money  presumably  had  come  to  him  through  the  set- 
tlement of  his  father's  estate. 

Very  nearly  everything  that  has  been  written  about 
Thomas  Lincoln's  three  farms  in  Kentucky  is  wrong.  The 
historians  and  biographers,  even  the  best  of  them,  have 
the  three  hopelessly  mixed  up,  and  hardly  anything  that 
they  tell  about  them  is  authentic. 

It  is  commonly  asserted  that  Thomas  Lincoln  and  his 
first  wife,  Nancy  Hanks,  were  first  cousins,  she  being  the 
daughter  of  Joseph  and  Nancy  Shipley  Hanks,  and  he  the 
son  of  Abraham  and  Mary  Shipley  Lincoln,  and  that 
Nancy  was  brought  up  by  a  thiid  of  the  five  Shipley  sis- 
ters, her  dear  Aunt  Lucy,  wife  of  Richard  Berry.  Thomas 
Lincoln  and  Nancy  Hanks  were  not  cousins;  we  might 
even  go  the  Hibernian  length  of  saying  that  ''neither  of 
them  were  cousins."  Her  mother  was  not  Nancy  Shipley 
and  his  mother  was  not  Mary  Shipley,  and  her  Aunt  Lucy 
was  not.  Aunt  Lucy,  but  was  named  Rachel  and  there  was 
no  proof  that  she  was  Nancy's  aunt. 

It  is  commonly  asserted  that  Thomas  Lincoln  was 
virtually  a  pauper,  and  pathetic  stories  are  told  of  the  ex- 
treme poverty  of  himself  and  Avife  at.  the  time  of  the  birth 
of  Abraham.  The  Lincoln  family  w^as  poor,  cA^en  as  pov- 
erty is  judged  in  the  backAvoods ;  but  there  exist  records  of 
certain  purchases  made  by  Thomas  Lincoln  of  articles  for 
the  home,  showing  that  even  in  those  primitive  days  in  the 
backwoods  of  Kentucky  the  discomfort  was  not  quite  so 
great  nor  the  poA^erty  so  wretched  as  has  been  described. 

Authors  have  seemed  to  feel  the  necessity  of  going  to 

C 


one  01-  two  extremes  in  their  description  of  the  early  life 
of  Lincoln.  Eitlier  they  i(Unilize  it,  so  that  there  is  no  real 
poverty,  or  they  exaj»jierate  conditions  of  s(inalor  to  ntter 
Av retch edn ess.    Neither  is  quite  true. 

It  is  often  afifirnu'd  tliat  Tlioinas  Lincoln  owned  no 
live  stock,  and  liad  to  boi  low  horses  Avith  Avhich  to  nialvc 
his  niiiiration  from  Kentucky.  On  the  contrary,  Thomas 
Lincoln  owned  a  horse  before  he  Avas  of  a<»e,  and  during 
his  married  life,  as  slioAvn  by  authentic  and  contemporai*y 
lists,  he  ahvays  liad  at  least  one  horse  and  commonly  moie 
than  one.  There  is  evidence  that  he  was  something  of  a 
hoi'se-brecHler.  At  one  tinu^  he  owned  a  stallion  and  sev- 
eral mares.     He  also  oAvned  cattle. 

It  is  often  affii-med  that  Th(Hnas  Lincoln  Avas  a  kind 
of  religious  vagrant,  having  no'  settled  religious  life  but 
drifting  in  a  derelict  Avay  into  one  sect  after  another  and 
being  brought  into  church  membership  through  the  influ- 
ence of  his  second  Avife.  On  the  contrary,  Thomas  Lincoln 
Avas  a  member  of  the  church  in  Kentucky,  where  Nancy 
Hanks  also  api)eai"s  to  have  been  a  member,  and  AAdien  he 
joined  the  church  in  Indiana  Avith  his  second  Avife,  Sarah 
Kush  Lincoln,  he  joined  by  letter  and  she  by  experience. 
He  was  a  church  member  before  she  was.  He  was  an  offi- 
cial member  of  the  churcli,  sometimes  acting  as  moderator, 
sometimes  as  referee  in  matters  of  arbitration  between 
church  membei's,  sometimes  as  delegate  to  other  churches. 

Thomas  Lincoln  Avas  an  easy-going  man,  Avithout  am- 
bition, and  he  cannot  be  called  industrious.  But  he  was 
friendly,  honest,  neighborly,  and,  judged  by  the  standards 
of  his  day,  temperate.  He  avou  the  hearts  of  two  good 
women.  The  first  of  these  Avas  Nancy  Hanks,  a  chaste 
young  Avoman,  Avho  bequeathed  to  her  son  fine  qualities  of 
character,  temperament,  dis])osition  and  poAver  of  mental 
gi-asp ;  Avhile  he  be(|neathed  a  genial  disposition,  sound 
good  sense,  a  love  of  story-telling,  and  those  companion- 
able (]ualities  Avhich  meant  sO'  much  to  the  life  of  Abraham 
Lincoln.  The  other  Avas  Sarah  Bush  Lincoln,  who  made 
Thomas  a  loving  and  faithful  Avife  and  Abraham  a  devoted 
mother.  In  her  younger  yeais  she  was  alert,  active,  indus- 
trious and  all  her  life  she  Avas  a  tiiie  and  sincere  Chris- 
tian Avoman.  ]Much  i)ity  has  been  Avasted  upon  her  for  hav- 
ing married  Thomas  Lincoln.  There  is  no  evidence  that 
she  felt  the  need  of  such  pity;  nor  is  it  any  libel  upon  her 
first  husband  to  say  that  her  second  marriage  brought  her 
quite  as  nnich  happiness  as  the  first. 

Of  the  vast  quantities  of  literature  that  have  been  pro- 

7 


(liiced  concerning-  Thomas  Lincoln  and  his  two  niariiages, 
not  quite  all  is  false,  but  more  than  half  of  it  is  in  great 
n^ed  of  re^ision,  and  some  is  utter  trash.  The  parents  -of 
Lincoln  were  undistinguished,  but  they  were  godfl  people, 
and  neither  Lincoln  nor  we  have  any  occasion  to  be 
ashamed  of  them.  There  is  of  course  if  marked  contrast 
between  their  obscurity  and  his  immortal  fame,  but  except 
for  them  we  should  never  have  had  him.  They  helped  to 
make  him  the  man  he  was. 

We  hold  in  lasting  honor  the  memory  of  Abraham 
Lincoln.  We  are  in  no  danger  of  honoring  him  more 
liighlv  than  he  deserves.  He  is  Avorthv  of  all  our  devotion. 
But  just  now  we  are  remembering:  these  humble  folk,  his 
parents,  his  father,  his  mother  and  his  step-mother.  They 
were  a  part  of  the  common  stuff  of  American  life  in  that 
period  of  movement  and  of  new  settlement,  with  nothing 
to  distinguish  them  above  their  neighbors,  save  this,  only, 
that  from  their  home  w^ent  forth  into  the  world  a  mighty 
leader  of  mankind.  We  could  not  have  expected  that  any 
such  son  as  Abraham  Lincoln  should  have  gone  forth  from 
their  cabin,  but  Ave  have  no  reason  to  be  sui'prised  that 
such  was  the  case.  In  their  veins  flowed  good,  sturdy, 
clean  American  blood.  They  were  honest,  virtuous,  sober 
people.  They  were  siiicere  and  religious.  AVith  little  edu- 
cation, they  had  good  sense  and  good  native  ability.  They 
contributed  the  qualities  which  were  essential  to  the 
heredity  and  early  environment  of  the  man  who  was  to 
save  this  nation  and  to  make  it  forever  free.  Let  us  honor 
today  the  honest,  sturdy  pioneers  of  whom  they  were  fair 
average  examples.  Let  us  be  glad  that  from  homes  as 
humble  as  theirs  and  descended  from  families  as  little 
known  to  fame  as  theirs  had  been,  so  great  a  man  could 
go  forth.  For  this  is  one  chief  hope  of  American  life,  that 
our  leaders  are  to  be  made  out  of  the  stuff  of  our  common 
manhood.  From  fathers  and  mothers  as  simple  and  un- 
pretentious as  Thomas  Lincoln  and  Kancy  Hanks,  from 
homes  as  poor  as  that  of  Thomas  Lincoln  and  Sally  Bush, 
are  to  go  forth  men  of  learning  and  power.  These  are  in 
large  measure  the  hope  of  America,  and  increasingly  are 
they  to  be  the  hope  of  the  Avorld. 


.^ 


